A Federal High Court sitting in Calabar, Cross River State, has ordered the University of Calabar (UNICAL) to pay N55 million to eight former students of the institution who were given admission to study engineering programmes.
The order was given by Rosemary Dugbo-Oghoghorie, the presiding judge, on Thursday.
These former students were originally offered admission in 2021, but it turned out that the engineering programmes lacked accreditation from the National Universities Commission (NUC).
While delivering her judgement, Dugbo-Oghoghorie described the university’s conduct as “fraudulent, reckless and deceitful”.
The judgement brought to an end a five-year legal dispute that was filed by Idiong Godwin, one of the eight affected students.
While the legal tussle lasted, the affected students were known as the ‘UNICAL Eight’.
THE 2021 LAWSUIT
In 2022, Godwin and other affected students took the university and five others to court, claiming over N500 million as general damages and special expenses for breach of trust and others.
This was after the NUC had made its position known about the university’s unaccredited engineering programmes.
The development led to the students being demoted from 300 and 400 levels to 200 level by the school authority.
While presenting their case before the court, the students claimed the university presented the programmes as “fully operational” in its faculty handbooks and public representations.
It was after they had progressed to their third and fourth year, paid tuition and other fees, and completed examinations that the NUC, during a resource verification exercise, directed them to revert to 200 level “because the courses were not accredited”.
Some departments were later discontinued entirely, leaving the affected students without options.
